Nijmegen, Netherlands (July 24, 2013)—Dutch rental company Story Sound recently tackled audio once again for the Emporium Festival in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, fielding JBL VTX Systems throughout the nine stages on site.
For the main stage, a dozen V25 line array elements were hung per side, while smaller stages got eight per side, so that the lows and mids could be spread.
Michael Story, Managing Director of Story Sound, said the system helped ease the sound thresholds imposed on the festival; located in the Berendonck recreational park in the suburb of Wijche, it is surrounded by a densely-populated neighborhood.
The festival has always been heavily restricted with it’s offsite sound—bound by an agreement with the original production manager to taper off the sound at the perimeter to just 80db(A) at 50 meters in order to avoid neighborhood sound pollution. “It was just mad, as sound is so frequency-dependent—and you can’t promote a festival on that basis,” Story said. However, this year the production company, aided by Ease plots, isolated the individual areas with the VTX system
“In the past we have used the VerTec VT4889, but due to the new high frequency waveguide structure, VTX provides us with better tools,” Story said. “The JBL Line Array Calculator is really accurate and after a year, we can see much greater correlation between how the calculations are implemented and the actual reference sound. We proved that you could simply walk in and out of the sound field, and this convinced the authorities.”
Permission was granted to play 80dB(A) at 100 meters outside the festival area, and on the field, they were able to run the sound at around 105dB, with a distance of 50 meters between the stage and mix position, which satisfied both the promoters and audience.
Harman
www.harman.com
